What does the Fabric Module on a 8200/5400 do?

[c-rhousz]

I'm pretty new to chassis type switches. I understand what the Management Modules do and why there are multiples. What do the Fabric Modules do? Control communication between the blades?

Thanks

[parnassus]

Hi, I believe that the concept/existence of a Fabric Module (something you can physically insert into the Switch chassis's Slots as happens with Line Interface Modules) is more related to HP ProCurve 8200 zl Switch Series (so 8206 zl and 8212 zl) which units were, each one, factory equipped with two HP ProCurve Farbic Modules (J9093A) per chassis on slots FM1 and FM2 (MM1 and MM2 are the Management Modules slots).

On HP ProCurve 5400 zl no (external/removeable) Fabric Module exists: is that because the Fabric features (through Fabric ASIC) - necessary for Switching and L3 Forwaring traffic from/to Line Interface Modules - were integrated directly into the 5400 Switch series chassis's backplane? Probably yes...

Would be great an architectural technical manual about the 8200 zl Switch series (with historical consideration about differences between 8200 zl and 5400 zl Switch series), I've one [*] about 5400 zl but nothing about 8200 zl.

[*] in which there is a clear reference to 8200 zl Fabric Modules (that can be used in a redundant way, basically both enabled by default):

"The Switch 8200zl offers the same ProVision ASIC intelligence and throughput with a redundant management module design and flexible switch fabric modules for demanding, high-availability applications, whether at the core, distribution, or edge of your network."